Brandin Cooks getting traded long seemed like a foregone conclusion, and now it’s finally done.
The Houston Texans sent the wideout to the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, getting a 2023 fifth-round pick and 2024 sixth-rounder in return. Cooks had requested a trade during Houston’s woeful 2022 campaign, but the team did not move him at the deadline.
Cooks has been in Houston for the entirety of their current rebuild, which at this point doesn’t have much of an end in sight. As a productive veteran receiver who has played on a few contenders, it was little surprise he wanted out.
Now, he should be a great complimentary piece alongside CeeDee Lamb for a Cowboys team that had a largely weak receiver group last season. Texans general manager Nick Caserio discussed the trade Monday in an exclusive interview with SportsRadio 610’s “Payne & Pendergast.”
"Trade discussions, quite frankly, they never materialize maybe the way that you think,” Caserio said. “I would just say even going back to the season, quite frankly, there are a lot of ‘experts’ that spoke on this topic that quite frankly had no idea what they’re talking about. So, I think sometimes things that are actually reported aren’t even close to being true.
“But nonetheless, I would say in this particular case, in the end we felt this was the best decision for everybody involved. The trade, the markets -- trades are always dictated by what a team is willing to pay, and then a team on the other end, in this case the Houston Texans, we have to make a decision whether we feel comfortable and it makes sense. Or, you want to wait around and see if you ‘get a better deal.’
“In the end, our responsibility is to take all the information in, try to process that information, and make a decision that we feel is in our best interest. So, that’s why we did what we did, and like I said, a lot of respect and appreciation for Brandin, what he’s done in this league, and he’s going to be a good player for a number of years here moving forward.”
For all of the Texans’ struggles in recent years, there is some optimism for the first time in a while. That’s thanks largely to the hiring of DeMeco Ryans, who not only is a Texans legend but also is widely considered a rising star in the coaching ranks.
Caserio wouldn’t outright divulge whether the team tried to get Cooks to rethink his trade request after Ryans was in the fold.
“We have a lot of discussions at different points, and in the end we felt this was the best decision for everybody involved,” Caserio said. “So, that’s why we arrived at the end point that we did.”
This was the second time Caserio worked with Cooks, as the two overlapped with the New England Patriots in 2017. Caserio has nothing but positive things to say about the 29-year-old.
“I have a lot of respect for Brandin as a person and a player. And a lot of teammates, a lot of players here in Houston feel the same way. So, Brandin has been a good player for a number of year in this league, he’s been a very productive player."
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